Pre-nup ????

cici71

My partner and I are due to marry in May. We live together and the house was mine before we met. It is my only form of inheritance to give to my 2 children and my only source of income for later in life. The mortgage is in my name, I am solely responsible for paying the mortgage. It's a really tricky subject to bring up but am I right/fair in wanting a pre nuptial agreement to state that on divorce (if that happens) the property remains mine.

lika_86

Given the legal status of pre-nups in the UK and the fact that you're asking the question (which indicates you may be meeting some resistance) together with your situation makes me wonder why you want to get married when it sounds like you'd be better off remaining unmarried.

cici71

Hi. It's safeguarding my assets! It's sensible and unfortunately I read too often that people can get quite spiteful in a divorce. I did wonder whether my thread should go into the 'marriage and r/ships' thread or property/finance thread. I really needed a financial view, not a wrongful assumption of the state of my r/ship!??

bellaboo86

I think you've left it very late in the day to mention this. I think you should have discussed this when he moved in. Not just before your wedding.

arbrighton

cici71 wrote: »

Hi. It's safeguarding my assets! It's sensible and unfortunately I read too often that people can get quite spiteful in a divorce. I did wonder whether my thread should go into the 'marriage and r/ships' thread or property/finance thread. I really needed a financial view, not a wrongful assumption of the state of my r/ship!??

You were given good advice- prenups have virtually no legal enforceability in this country so you're actually wasting your funds to try and ' protect your assets. '

There, purely financial point.

I won't mention anything to do with marriage/ sharing life etc

Person_one

cici71 wrote: »

Hi. It's safeguarding my assets!

You can't, really. Pre-nups are not legally binding in this country, and divorce courts are completely free to disregard them if they want to.

I think you can write a will that will leave the house to your children if you die first, with the condition that your husband can live in it for the rest of his life. You can't protect it from him in the case of divorce though, especially if you stay married for a while.

Guest101

Also the mortgage is in your name, but if he's been paying you any money whilst living there, that could be construed as gaining an interest in the property and therefore he's already owed some of it.

lika_86

cici71 wrote: »

Hi. It's safeguarding my assets! It's sensible and unfortunately I read too often that people can get quite spiteful in a divorce. I did wonder whether my thread should go into the 'marriage and r/ships' thread or property/finance thread. I really needed a financial view, not a wrongful assumption of the state of my r/ship!??

I wasn't making an assumption about the state of your relationship. I was trying to point out that the best way for you to safeguard your assets is to remain unmarried, especially when, on the facts you gave, there seems to be no financial benefit to be gained from marrying.

TBagpuss

arbrighton wrote: »

You were given good advice- prenups have virtually no legal enforceability in this country so you're actually wasting your funds to try and ' protect your assets. '

There, purely financial point.

I won't mention anything to do with marriage/ sharing life etc

This isn;t actually correct. Pre-Nups are not legally enforceable, however, if a couple divorce, and can't agree on a finacial settlement, then a Court has to decide what is a fair settlement taking into account all the circumstnaces. 'All the circumstances' includes any pre-nuptial agreement you've entered into, and provided that the Pre-Nup is done correctly and meets cetian criteria about both getting legal advice and providing proper disclosure, then it will be given significant weight.

The cout can also take into accoutn any other relavant cirvumstnaces and in general, the longer you have been married for before any split, the less weight is likely to be given to the pre-nup, as it is increasingly likely that there will be other issues which are equally importnat in deciding what is fair.

It's an extrmely sensible thing to do. Quiate apart from anything else, in order to agree on the contents of a pre-nup, you and your fiance will need to talk about your respective finacial positions, your assumptions and expectations about finances within your marriage etc, and that allows you to identify any big differences in your poutlooks and expectations now, rather than having those differences surface at a later date when they may lead to serious difficulties in your relationship.

However, if your fiance is reluctant to consider or discuss it, then it may be wise for you to consider whether you are ready to get married to each other. Ask yourself whether you will be happy in a marriage with someone who is not willing to discuss finances or your future together with you, and who is not prepared to consider your wishes or feelings on the subject.

Pre-Nups are not romantic. Neither is insurance, but that doesn't mean that having insurance is a bad thing. And a pre-nup is a form of insurance. It insures you against finding out, later in your relationship, that you have fundemental differeneces in your outlooks and expectations about joint finances, it insures each of you against being ripped off or taken advantage of by the other, and finally, it gives you some insurance against the risk of very bitter, acrimonious and expensive legal fights if things go wrong and you end up separating.

If you both trust the other to be reasonable, then neither of you has anything to lose by putting that into a formal agreement.

goodwithsaving

Genuine question for posters (sorry to hijack OP) - because I would want one too. Fine it's unromantic, but it's sensible and no-one can predict the future. Some people are more cautious than others, it doesn't make them bad people.

They aren't binding, but surely the courts would take them as some form of indicator?

Guest101

Marriage is a legal agreement


If you want romance have a commitment party or some other thing.